Putting Kids At Risk

THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE read "House of Horrors," and it was an apt description for the subject of the story.

The news story was about a devastating event in the life of a Lubbock family. On an otherwise quiet Saturday, while the mother was working and the father and four children were at a cookout, the family's home was ransacked and vandalized.

The intruders smashed their television sets, videocassette recorders and stereo equipment with hammers. They destroyed clothing, threw food around the kitchen area, knocked holes in walls, tore down curtains, poured bleach on the carpets and sprayed paint in the home. As if all of that were not enough, they left water running in the bathtub to flood the house.

Children are not learning right from wrongThe perpetrators of that incredible amount of damage were soon caught. Their identities were shocking: They were an 11-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl who were acquaintances of one of the family's children.

We, along with the victimized family and countless other decent people in our community, are wondering what would cause children that young  and girls, who usually are less likely to commit crimes, to boot  to do such terrible things.

This isn't small-time vandalism such as cutting a garden hose or throwing a rock through a window. This was felony criminal mischief that was committed by pre-teens.

Too many children are not learning right from wrong. Acts that should be considered unthinkable by children instead seem daring or exciting to them.

Parents must invest timeMost parents today are still doing their jobs as parents admirably. But a growing number of them are failing to supervise their children, to guide them along good paths and to instill a basic sense of decency and values in them.

And parents are learning that girls are more inclined to grow up bad today than they were even a decade ago. In 1990, 28 percent of juveniles who were arrested for crimes were girls, but that had grown to 47 percent by 1999.

Two girls who were confined to the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center recently told an Avalanche-Journal reporter that parents who do not give their children sufficient supervision and attention are putting them at risk for getting into trouble.

And they agreed that drug use has led many of today's juvenile criminals into more serious crimes.

Parents must invest time in their children and have serious talks with them about drugs and about behavior. Children want to be loved and supervised. It is a shame that so many parents do not understand that.

And, far too often, those are the parents who end up getting calls from the police department informing them that their kids are in custody. It does not have to happen that way.

Parents who let their children run wild are putting them at risk. And parents who supervise and talk to their children help protect them. It is as simple as that.